Bookworm’s paradise

I found out about NetGalley exactly a year ago.
Before then all the books that I read came from my own personal collection, or a vast, vast library that I was working at. Let’s just say, I never ran out of books to read, but rather my book piles kept growing and growing. Yet I always wanted more.
It’s in my nature. Maybe it’s the post-Soviet upbringing, where I hardly had anything, books included, and it was never enough. In fact, I could never get enough books. In those dark days of no Internet, cable or even DVDs, books were all I had.
I am a genetic bookworm – both my parents were huge book nerds. But while my mother mostly borrowed books, as she had no place to store them, my father filled his whole apartment with books to the point where he had to, literally, sleep on top of piles of books. Needless to say, with that pedigree I learned how to read at age 3 and was always ravenous for books.
I will not ramble on about this now, it’s a story for another post – or seven. Now is the moment to praise NetGalley.
So it was January 2017 and I was lamenting the fact that I barely got any new books during the holidays and I, like, ran out of reading material. Which is so not true, but you can never tell a bookworm that. I was browsing through Goodreads, looking at my friends’ reviews and getting more and more agitated because I kept running into the same disclaimer – I got a free copy of this book through NetGalley.
What was this NetGalley, I wondered, and how can I get some free books from it? God knows I’ve earned the right to get free books over a lifetime of obsessive devotion to literature! A quick Google search revealed that NetGalley was a treasure trove of brand new and upcoming releases that could be yours free of charge, if only you’d be so kind as to leave a review on your Goodreads, blog and other social media platforms (also don’t forget Amazon).
Oh em gee, thought I! All these free books in exchange for something that I already do – writing reviews?! Sign me up and give me all the books, please and thank you! It turned out that NetGalley and all the publishers were incredibly generous and really enthusiastic about literature, to the point where most of the books that I requested I would receive. I never even hoped for that much! Pretty soon my Kindle was bursting from countless electronic pages, and my mind was bursting from all the stories that I could help share with the world.
And then my mother got really sick and all my reading and especially reviewing whittled down to nothing…
2018 was officially the worst year of my life. The most challenging, devastating year. One where everything about me was put to the test, including my natural-born love of literature. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t lose myself in a book. Partly because I couldn’t sit still for longer than five minutes at a time, so consumed was I by taking care of my mother and trying to hold on to a job. And partly because reading requires more work than watching movies or shows, especially when you want to write a good review when you’re finished.
Long story short, I closed out the year of devastation and despair without my mother, and with a gaping hole where my heart used to be. And now, at the start of 2019, I realize that I need to fill that hole with something. Could it be my old soulmate Literature? After all, we’ve had some amazing times together over the years. Literature was my constant companion, even when all else failed me. Hopefully it will pull me out of this deep, dark hole now, since nothing and no one else can.
And the reason why I started and concluded this post with praise for NetGalley is that one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get my reading and reviewing back on track. I feel terrible about getting those wonderful free books and then letting publishers down by not reviewing them on time.
Well, if any publishers or NetGalley team is reading this, please know – I will get better, I will keep reading, I will improve my reading and reviewing habits, and I will make you proud! Okay, that last one was kind of cheesy, but when it comes to books I am a cheesy, over-the-top, unapologetic book lover and I will prove that with my actions in 2019!
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to my Kindle – stories await!